Fragile Flower
by NoteEmmy
Summary: Yami Malik suspects that when Yami Bakura says he cannot be destroyed because he is darkness, there is more to be done. What he ends up finding is more maddening than a simple murder.


As the spirit that inhabited Ryou's body dissolved into darkness, he had warned that he was made up of nothing but. It was supposed to be a threat, of this the deranged man left on the battlefield was sure. Ridiculous as the notion was. He had lost, and so he had thrown any last refuge he could to make himself feel assured. He had hardly any time to even laugh at the thought that someone so lowly and predictable could even be one with the shadows that had birthed him, ever changing and bleak. That spirit was no one. And no more.

But it left him at a pause. Once he'd told off the third wheel and gone away for some time, once he had had some time to think… The darkness that inhabited Malik's body really wanted to relish the thought of squashing an opponent such as him. There was no fear. There was never fear. If that spirit had claimed to be one with the darkness then Yami Malik could only agree that he was the epitome of such a concept. He was born in the catacombs of Egypt, bathed in blood. What would someone else understand about a thing like that?

It left him with a wonder. Another itch to strangle that same sort of prey. But Bakura had gone and there was no getting him back, regardless of his boasts. The only thing that was left to him was returning to the crime scene, as it were. In the dead of night, hours before the sunrise. The rest of the inhabitants of the ship would be asleep for hours yet. Fools as they were. He could sneak into each of their bedrooms and be done with their useless lives if he'd felt like it. Instead the field he'd taken up only a little while ago called his attention.

Calling his Rod to power, he scanned- of course there was nothing. He hadn't expected there to be. That spirit was long gone. He was never coming back. Thoroughly trounced and defeated. Yet there was a scent almost. Not blood. Not anything remotely near it. Not even defeat. And calling back the bleakness once more, he could almost see a small droplet of light inside all of it. There was no point in searching for a life force of his defeated opponent- and yet something was standing out against him. A small will to live, or at least protect. He had no choice but to follow it against his better wishes, only because he wanted to crush it in his hands.

The Rod was unsheathed in a matter of moments with a sharp metallic noise out of its holder. Something that was definitely not pretending darkness incarnate was still standing with the life force of someone he had banished to death. Was it true, then? There was no getting rid of that man? Impossible. Murder was simple and life forces were easy to extinguish. But there in his mind's eye, in the other mind, down a long winding path, was almost a glass barricade. And it was bright. It burned it was so bright.

As he drew closer it took the shape of such a delicate little flower. White with an offset pink hue. How disgusting a thing it was he wanted to step on it, but he knew immediately he could not. It was something not of his world, of another entirely. And though it was keeping the last remaining life force of Yami Bakura-

Thought ceased immediately. Not the spirit. His host. This light did not belong to his host, but it was protecting him. Or was he protecting it? The sudden clashing of information, things he did not understand, was infuriating enough for him to crouch. He was so much bigger. So much more deadly. His hand reached down, as if he were going to snuff it out with one single move. But still he could not. And when he parted his fingers to look through, he saw a pair of delicate eyes looking back at him. It was so startling that he stood back up in a scramble, moving back a few inches.

Darkness he could understand. Darkness he breathed and madness he lived every day.

But this flower. This memory of someone- someone so strong that it was the only thing keeping the last remnants of the spirit and his host alive. How could that be? The spirit had been wrong in calling darkness his ally, when this… vision. This gentle drop of light was the true source of his ability to stay. So powerful and yet so very fragile. It was not a concept the spirit standing in front of it understood. Nor was it one he wanted to. The very thought that something this small and insignificant could stand in the way of a true victory, of true bloodshed, was more than infuriating enough for him to want to trounce it. To rip all the petals off one by one and listen for screams.

The sun peaked off the balcony of the ship, wind whipping at his face. His hand had clenched hard around his Rod as the glow from the vision died down. What did it really matter that the spirit was still clinging desperately to this last pitch of life? What did it matter that not darkness, but instead something on the very opposite grounds kept him in tow? Nothing.

None of it mattered. Yami Malik had bigger things to worry about, bigger murders to plan.

As he sat in the blackness of his room, curtains drawn, he flexed his fingers. Not blood, not the sticky warm feeling that usually sat upon them and looked as though it had gotten between the crevices of his nails. He only focused on the soft feeling.

Petals.

His conquest for bloodshed and the battlefield torn apart had been rendered useless by a single, solitary flower that stood out against him. Nothing was more maddening to him in that moment of realization. That he could not win. That there was a shred of light he could not extinguish.

Failure.

Where darkness his usual ally… he had failed.


End file.
